


Repair

by dotfic



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-23
Updated: 2010-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Astrid will fix this herself. She needs to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Repair

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: coda for 2x09. Lovely beta work by ariadnes_string.

Pulling out of the hug, Walter pats Astrid on the shoulders, palms barely brushing her. "Now," he says, turning. "Let me help you clean this up. Where do we keep the broom?"

His eagerness and intentness as he moves away, his shoes scuffing against the broken glass, make Astrid need to swallow a few times. He has the Walter-focus he gets when there's someone who needs saving, as if cleaning up will somehow cure what happened to her and he's going to figure it out if it takes days or weeks or months or years. It's sweet, and she can't handle it right now.

"Walter..."

But he's found the broom, and goes to work.

He's a pain in the butt, and he's done some not-good things, some she knows, some vague and mysterious that she's still trying to unravel. Walter, Astrid knows, is a mystery even to his son -- even to himself. But there's something valiant about him.

"Walter..." She tries again, moisture from the tears drying against her face, itchy. She takes a deep breath, done with crying.

He looks up and smiles at her. "The broken glass has scattered in a way very much like Rorschach tests, don't you think? That bit there --" he gestures with his free hand "-- looks like an umbrella, and there by your foot I swear the pattern makes me think of the model of an atom."

So much for focus. "You don't have to," Astrid says. Her fingers close around the broom, above his hand. "I'll clean it up. I...need to."

Walter keeps his grip on the broom a few more seconds. "Yes." He lets go and his gaze is sharp. "Yes, I understand how you feel." With a nod, he puts out his hand, as if he would pat her on the shoulder again, but he pulls away. "Don't work too much longer, Astrid. Go home and rest."

Only after he's left does she realize he got her name right. She wonders sometimes if he always knows it and it isn't merely the scattering of his memory or thoughtlessness that causes the variations. Walter likes to experiment, which would make her correct name some kind of baseline measurement. It's still annoying.

Alone, she keeps on working.

* * *

Shadows fill the edges of the lab. Astrid sweeps with short, brisk motions, pausing to pick up an evaporating dish and a test tube rack that fell to the floor during the fight. _Struggle_ is a better word; it was over too quickly for her to really call it a fight, although she kicked one of the men in the stomach and hit another one in the face with a pestle before he knocked her out.

There's a shuffling and a soft click behind her. Astrid's pulse jumps, but it's only Gene, turning in her stall. Cows are so ordinary and yet so outlandish -- Astrid stares at Gene's broad, long improbable face and gentle eyes for a moment before bending to pick up a handful of pipettes.

The lab door opens. Astrid drops the pipettes, letting them fall to the floor with a soft patter.

Agent Dunham lifts a hand as she walks slowly towards Astrid. Her lower lip tucks in as she stops to scratch at the back of her head, beneath her neatly tied ponytail. "Uh, hi," Olivia says.

"Hi," says Astrid, gathering up the pipettes.

"What're you still doing here?" Olivia tilts her head, shoulders hunching. Astrid thinks it's both deliberate -- Olivia's way of being non-threatening -- and an unconscious revealing of her uncertainty. As if she's not sure Astrid will welcome her.

People are like languages: once you learn the repeated patterns, they become easier to understand. Olivia has all kinds of visual tells, maybe because Olivia tries so very hard not to reveal anything. It's Peter who can go so still that Astrid can't read him, which is strange because Peter's a people person, he seems open and doesn't bother hiding how he feels most of the time.

"Cleaning up," Astrid says, keeping her voice bright. She puts the pipettes away and kneels to pick up a broken wash bottle. The glass edges are sharp, gleaming in the lab's lights.

"Want some help?"

"No, that's okay, I'd rather..." Astrid stays kneeling on the floor, fingers against the side of the broken bottle. "It helps to be putting things back in order."

"Yeah." Olivia squats beside her, her voice so soft that Astrid's vision goes swimmy for a moment.

Astrid blinks it away. Her fingers shake a little as she picks up the broken bottle. She doesn't look to see if Olivia noticed. Still kneeling, she tightens her grip and throws the glass into the big trash bag.

"I did well at Quantico, you know," Astrid says, throwing away the other piece of broken bottle. "Better at the investigative stuff than the physical stuff but I did good, I was fast in all the physical tests even if I'm not that strong. I thought I had good instincts. Always aced everything, all through school."

Olivia glances at her, but doesn't speak. She picks up a few of the larger pieces of broken glass.

"I'm trained," Astrid goes on. Now that she's started, the words flow. "I should've known I was being followed. I should've been able to stop them. Not --" Astrid shuts her mouth tight. She's not used to this feeling, as if this was a test, as if she flunked.

Her body gone still, arms resting on her knees, Olivia says, "It's not your fault," Olivia says. "You didn't screw up." She rises to her feet. "Is it okay if I..." she points towards the broom.

Astrid doesn't say anything a moment. It's on the tip of her tongue to say _I'm fine, go home, Olivia._

"But it was my job to protect the lab and the specimen," Astrid says instead, brushing the glass dust off her jeans as she also gets to her feet. She paces over to the computer console. She leans against it, palms behind her against the edge of the table. "They came in here and -- I did what I could to stop them but they just...one of them swatted me down. Just like that." Her control's slipping again. She hears the shake in her own voice.

Olivia comes over to lean against the table next to Astrid, their shoulders a few inches apart. She clears her throat. "After I...after my accident, when I came out of the coma, I couldn't assemble and load my own firearm. My hands kept shaking so much." She huffs out a breath, a self-deprecating laugh. "Ridiculous. Something I'd done over and over, a thousand times, could literally do blindfolded."

"Really?" This is new. It slots in with the other things she knows about Olivia, like an unknown phrase finally translated that slightly alters the meaning of the already comprehensible passages of the text.

"You did your job," Olivia says, her voice flat and with an edge, the voice she uses when she expects she'll be argued with, blocked, or denied.

"All right," Astrid says.

When Olivia grabs the broom and starts sweeping, Astrid lets her.

  
~end


End file.
